


saved

by BadWolfGirl01



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Episode IX, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), I Blame Tumblr, Inspired By Tumblr, Lightsaber Battles, One Shot, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Rey Needs A Hug, Short, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 09:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13074213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadWolfGirl01/pseuds/BadWolfGirl01
Summary: they meet again, in the middle of the battlefield.(insp. by this post: https://reyloismyobsession.tumblr.com/post/168739704281/shit-i-am-asshamed-of-kylo-ben-solo-ren)





	saved

It’s a stalemate.

They’re too perfectly matched; he’s gotten the upper hand a couple times, but she always gets it back. Neither of them can win.

(That’s a lie. He knows what her weaknesses are and how to exploit them. But he can’t make himself do it.)

(He can’t hurt her. He never could.)

She’s beautiful, when she’s angry. Her hazel eyes reflect the light from their lightsabers, looking for all the world like twin nebulae trapped inside her irises, like she has stars stitched into the very fabric of her soul. They’re always there, always present, but it’s only when she’s enraged that they burn.

(Once, those eyes had looked at him with an entirely different sort of fire, and he had imagined falling into the flames and being consumed--only to be reborn again, purified, cleansed of the demons haunting his every breath. Once, he had dreamed of it, that fire, with a desperate longing fueled by hope.

Now, he still dreams, but his dreams are drenched in regret, instead.)

He hasn’t seen her in the flesh since she rejected him in Snoke’s throne room. (Since he made the biggest mistake of his life.) There have been flashes of the bond, of course, and even the occasional brief conversation, but that  _ intimacy, _ that closeness, vanished. And now, whenever she looks at him, the only fire he sees is her rage.

He doesn’t  _ want _ to fight her.

( _ You have that look in your eyes, from the forest. You called me a monster. _

_ You  _ **_are_ ** _ a monster! _

_ Yes, I am.) _

She was right the whole time. She’s always right, always been right. He  _ is _ a monster. Everyone who should have loved him feared him, and left him, and the only one brave enough to stay, he drove away. (No wonder she hates him.)

He wonders, briefly, if the Skywalker bloodline is cursed.

And then he shoves the thought away, because it doesn’t  _ matter, _ not now. He knows what he has to do.

He drops his lightsaber.

Rey stares at him in shock, freezing, eyes widening (that anger draining slowly away), lips parted ever-so-slightly, and when she whispers his name, her voice shakes with uncertainty. “Ben?”

“Do it,” he says, low and steady. Calm. “Do it. It’s time to slay the monster.” And he smiles at her, a  _ true _ smile (the first one in years). “Rey,” he says, just to feel her name on his lips one last time, and then (barely audible), “Please?”

(He keeps his eyes open--he wants her face to be the last thing he sees.)

The strike doesn’t come; he realizes, distantly, that she’s crying (he wonders what he did this time, to hurt her--he’s always hurting her, even though she’s the most precious thing in all the galaxy to him). “You  _ idiot _ ,” she breathes, stepping closer towards him, her lightsaber blade fading away (the casing falling unnoticed to the ground). “Ben, I don’t  _ want _ to kill you. I--I want to  _ save _ you.”

“Save me?” he asks. “Rey... you already have.”

(Whether or not she rose up to meet him or he leaned down to her will be a topic oft discussed in the mess in the days to come. But the truth is that both of those answers are wrong. The truth is, quite simply, this: that when Ben Solo and Rey of Jakku kissed each other in the middle of the last battle between the Resistance and the First Order, they met each other halfway, neither giving more ground than the other. They came together in the middle and, at last, they found the balance.)


End file.
